I’m working my way around the state’s newspapers in hopes of finding quotes revealing the DFL’s true nature. This afternoon, I hit the jackpot when I read this WC Trib article. Check out Sen. Sandy Pappas’ quote:

Higher Education Chairwoman Sandy Pappas, DFL-St. Paul, said college and university funding is far from enough. “We are starving higher education,” she said.

Pappas’ statement is laughable if it weren’t so scary. Here’s how she thinks we’re “starving higher education”:

Under the Senate targets, public education would get the most of $1.3 billion in new money: $498 million in the next two years. Following would be higher education ($296 million) and health and human services ($245 million). Other parts of the budget would get relatively insignificant increases considering the total state spending will top $34 billion over the next two years.

Higher education getting an additional $148 million per year is starving Higher Education? I wish state legislators would get around to starving me like that. In light of those numbers, Pappas sees a grim future:

Pappas predicted existing plans to increase public college and university tuition about 4 percent each of the next two years may jump to twice that much.

How about actually taking a look into the university budgets to see if they need all of their allocated administrators & regents. I’d love seeing the U of M Board of Regents reduced by a sander. (I’d bet that the students wouldn’t notice the difference. Anyone want to make that bet with me?) How about looking into whether most of the administration staff overlaps? How about checking to see if any departments made major purchases right before the end of the budget year just so their budgets didn’t get shrunk the next year?

Does anyone think that there isn’t a significant amount of waste in school spending? If there is, my first question is “When did your spaceship land”? It’s obvious that only a liberal would think that we need more. Remember that liberals think that it’s illegal for you to ask them to attach a dollar amount to that “more”. Here’s some more of the article’s gloom:

Figures Senate leaders released Thursday show budget numbers, known in the Capitol as “targets”, that are just enough to cover inflation and pretty much nothing more. That means no all-day, everyday kindergarten. That means covering all of Minnesotaâ€™s children with health care insurance might have to wait. That means little more can be done for the pre-schoolers. That means there might be no chance to keep college tuition rates static.“Weâ€™re going to struggle immensely to address the education needs of the next two years with that target,” said Chairman LeRoy Stumpf of the Senate education finance division.

They’re going to “struggle immensely”? What about parents, young families & singles struggling because of the state’s skyrocketing property taxes? Does anyone stand up for them? You won’t find a DFLer fighting for property tax caps. Except if it’s combined with a higher corporate income tax or higher marginal tax rates that small businesses pay.

If there are any state tax increases, they probably will go to lower local property taxes, Sen. Rod Skoe, DFL-Clearbrook said. Skoe, the Senate property tax chairman, said decisions are yet to be made about raising taxes.

Isn’t raising one tax to lower another tax keeping the state taxation rate the same? In other words, isn’t Skoe’s plan really like robbing Peter to pay Paul? What about the government doing with less? Why is it that government gets to maintain its gluttonous ways while private citizens, especially those lower in the food chain, get starved?

The middle class squeeze that Democrats ran on last fall exists but it’s being caused by Democrats’ excessive spending habits.

Tarryl, if your DFL ‘friends’ keep raising taxes, private citizens won’t be able to do anything. Isn’t it time that you kept your promise to locate wasteful spending? Isn’t it time that the Senate held serious oversight hearings to identify wasteful spending?

It’s time for Republicans to tell Minnesota’s voters that, if they’re restored to the majority party: